Cambridge Professor Says We’re Having Less Sex Because We’re Watching More TV, Which Feels Like a Fair Tradeoff

What’s your favorite thing to do in bed besides sleeping? If you immediately thought “fire up HBO Go and spend several hours in a slothlike state, pausing only to shovel more snacks into my mouth hole,” you’re most certainly not alone. But one Cambridge academic believes that our penchant for watching a ton of TV is causing us to have less sex.

The Telegraphreports that statistician David Spiegelhalter called the declining sex rates in the U.K. “very worrying,” saying:

People are having less sex. Sexually active couples between 16 and 64 were asked and the median was five times in the last month in 1990, then four times in 2000 and three times in 2010.

At this rate by 2030 couples are not going to be having any sex at all. Which is a very worrying trend.

You say why? Statisticians say I don’t know. One of the researchers mentioned the word iPad. I think it’s the box set, Netflix. OMG I’ve got to watch the entire second series of Game of Thrones.

The point is that this massive connectivity, the constant checking of our phones compared to just a few years ago when TV closed down at 10.30pm or whatever and there was nothing else to do.

Interesting theory, but seeing how binge-watching an entire season of a show is basically as pleasurable as tantric sex — without physical movement, interacting with another human, or the accidental-pregnancy risk — we’re going to go ahead and say that this is a net positive.